How to Identify Gemstones

Identifying gemstones have become more of a challenge now than ever before due to the advent of new technologies that allows creating imitations and synthetic gemstones. Therefore to verify if it’s a gemstone or not you should:

• Feel the surface for an unnaturally rough or sandy in texture stones are notgemstones.
• Check its malleability as stones that are easily reshaped by hammering, crushing or bending are usually metallic ores for gemstones have crystalline structure that cannot be altered by just pressure.
• There are many synthetic stones in the market which share the same structure, chemical composition and physical properties. However you can identify them by looking at the curved, v-shaped and nail patterns inside them.

Now after establishing that it is a stone, look out for certain features to establish the type of stone. Our experts at Ankur Gems have prepared a list of basic features you can look for in a gemstone:

Color

The most basic feature used in identifying gemstone is its color which is further bifurcated into hue, tone and saturation. Hue is the basic color of stone’s overall body, while tone refers to its shade as dark, medium, light or in-between and saturation denotes to its intensity. Use the chart of colors by Gemological Institute of America to identify colors.

Transparency

How light filters through the stone decides whether the stone is transparent, translucent or opaque. When light completely filters through the stone, it is called transparent and when light partially filters through or does not filter through at all, it is called translucent and opaque consecutively.

Heft

Heft is the heaviness of gemstone. It can be easily determined by bouncing the gemstone on your palm. By doing this you can estimate whether it feels heavier, lighter or just right for its size.

Optical phenomena

Optical phenomena in a gemstone can be checked by passing a pen light across stone’s surface to see for characteristics like change in color, appearance of asterisms/star, chatoyancy/cat’s-eye, adularescence/floating shimmer, aventurescence /sparkle.

Luster

The way which surface of a gemstone reflects light is called luster. To check the luster turn the stone so that light passes reflects off its surface, and view it with the naked eye and a 10*loupe. See if the stone looks dull, shiny, metallic, waxy, greasy or silky.